*His Name was Death, by Fredric Brown

0679734686
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1991
originally published 1954
141 pp

"You'd never in a thousand years have guessed that he was a murderer and a criminal. You'd have thought him dull, plodding, honest. And up to the time when, a year ago almost to the day, he had killed his wife you'd have been completely correct."

This is the city. Los Angeles, California. I kill here. I carry a gun.

With apologies to Jack Webb, aka Sgt. Joe Friday, for some reason after I finished this book, this redo of the old Dragnet opening monologue  was the first thing that popped into my head and I had to use it.

If you haven't read Fredric Brown's work, you are missing something truly exquisite. Considering that the guy absolutely hated to write, what's come out of his brain is genius. His Name was Death makes two by Brown that I've read; between this one and Here Comes a Candle, the second one was far more intense and had me heebie-jeebied all the way through, but both are super books. Now waiting in the bullpen is Homicide Sanitarium -- oh god, what a great name! -- which I'm dying to crack open soon. That should give you an inkling of how much I like this author. Better known for his SF stories, Fredric Brown is a top-notch crime writer as well.

1940s Los Angeles is the setting for this very small book, with an opening line that whets your appetite right from the start:

"Her name was Joyce Dugan, and at four o'clock on this February afternoon she had no remote thought that within the hour before closing time she was about to commit an act that would instigate a chain of murders."

It isn't long until we find out who Joyce Dugan is and what she's done to "instigate a chain of murders," albeit unwittingly. Acting out of friendship, she starts a series of events that ends up in a gut-punching shocker of a finish. At the printing shop where she works one day, in walks Claude Atkins, one of Joyce's old boyfriends from high school. He's not there to see Joyce, but to pick up a check from Joyce's boss, Darius Conn, with whom he'd recently swapped cars with a little extra coming from Darius to make up for the difference. Joyce decides to give him money out of the petty cash box but there's not enough, so after a call to her boss, she writes out a check. But Atkins needs cash for the weekend. Just then Joyce remembers the envelope full of money in the office safe; she has Atkins endorse the check and pulls out $90 in brand new ten dollar bills, leaving the signed-over check in the envelope. Now everyone's happy. But wait.

When Darius gets back to the office he discovers what Joyce has done and it's a big problem. The money Joyce gave Claude just happened to be counterfeit, part of a batch Darius was planning to parlay into a net profit of about $2500. The printing office is a front for his operation, and Joyce has just given nine of his newly-printed test bills to someone who, if he was caught with the fake money, would know just where it came from. Darius can't take that chance:

"He had to get that money back from Claude Atkins. Somehow. No matter what the risk of doing that, it couldn't be any greater than the risk of doing nothing or the risk of running.
Get it without killing if possible, but kill if that turned out to be the only way.
He'd got away with murder once, hadn't he?"

His plan: to improvise, to take the opportunity when it knocks -- even if it means he has to kill. Darius is still proud of himself -- the reader discovers early on that he's gotten away with murdering his wife just a year earlier -- so he figures if saving himself prison time for the counterfeit money means he has to kill again, well, it's what he has to do. He still gloats inwardly about having fooled the cops and acting the grieving husband; he even become friends with the detective handling his wife's murder case. The rest of the novel follows Darius as he tries to retrieve his fake funds -- but well, even quick-thinking Darius can't predict the hitches along the way.

Los Angeles, 1940s

Considering the edge of darkness that you ride as you read through the novel, Brown is very economic in terms of story telling -- the novel is sleek, with absolutely nothing unnecessary weighing down the plot, a lesson many modern crime novelists really need to learn. The dimly-lit, seedy bars along with the city streets and back alleys of Los Angeles give an honest feel for place and time which enhances the story. He manages to hold you in suspense all along the way without resorting to the burdensome backstory to make his characterizations work, there is no unnecessary exposition, and there's even a good measure of black, sardonic humor thrown into this book. And then the classic Fredric Brown ending -- well, it's truly what you would least expect.  Highly, highly recommended.

*another installment of my overall focus on American authors for October and November

and now, for something completely different: Lady of the Shades, by Darren Shan

9781490143604
Orion Books, 2012 (UK)
312 pp
hardcover
(read in September)

If you go to the author's website you might notice that UK writer Darren Shan is a guy who really isn't a crime novelist at all, but instead specializes in Urban Fantasy and horror, mostly for teens and young adults.  Lady of the Shades is not in either category; actually, it's something very different.  I don't have the foggiest idea how I heard about this book (maybe a blurb somewhere connected to something else I was exploring online), but I bought it, read it and had a lot of fun with it.

the author of Lady of the Shades, Darren Shan

Although this book may not be standard crime fiction fare,  I've come to realize that sometimes pulling away from the formulaic and reading outside the box can produce some eye-opening moments.  Lady of the Shades turned out to be as twisty as a sack full of  Philly pretzels;  I actually thought I'd had it figured out a couple of times but alas it was not to be.  Sadly I can't really get into why this book is so twisty without giving away the show, but I will say that just when you think things are one way, the rug is twitched out from underneath your feet leaving you flat on your can in surprise.

I'll offer just a brief synopsis because I don't want to kill it for anyone else.  Lady of the Shades is ultimately a novel about how a person's past continues to have a strong bearing on his/her present, and it's also a rather odd story about the power and hold of love.   Ed Sieveking is an American author who, much like the hero of Stuart Neville's series that begins with Ghosts of Belfast, carries ghosts around with him where ever he goes. He understands that his ghosts are "probably the workings of a deluded mind," and likely "the projections of a deeply troubled psyche."  He doesn't want to accept that he's "a loon," and is looking to find a way back to normality. In London, where his newest horror novel (involving Human Spontaneous Combustion) is set, he finds himself at a party where he bumps into a beautiful woman named Deleena Emerson.  Ed's previous books are not ones you'd find on the bestseller lists at any time, so he's very flattered when he realizes Deleena knows who he is and that she's read his books.  From that meeting on, Ed is severely smitten, boinged straight through the heart by Cupid's arrow, but any hopes of the two of them becoming a permanent item are quickly put on hold  when Ed discovers a well-guarded secret about her.  Like Ed, Deleena's present is very much affected by her past, and Ed soon finds himself caught up in a very strange predicament or two or three, where anything can happen and where nothing is at all like it seems.  All he wants is the truth -- but that's not going to be so easy, as the line between what is real and what is not begins to blur and get hazier as the novel proceeds, continually testing Ed's ability to "make sense of the world."


Actually, Lady of the Shades tests the reader's ability to understand things as well.  The first half of this novel introduces all of the players, especially the intriguingly-flawed Ed, who comes from a very troubled past that he is trying to forget.  Ed is basically a good person, hopeful for his future, but when love hits, it hits him hard and it tends to screw up his decision-making processes.  It's very easy sometimes to groan out loud over some of Ed's choices, which aren't always that smart.  The pace of the book is a bit slow at first, but quickly picks up, and in the second half, the author takes his readers into hyperdrive as one revelation after another comes flying off the pages.  Much of what you find out frankly stops the show; other times you just find yourself laughing at the craziness.  Then you reach the bizarre ending, which, considering the context of this novel, does actually work.  It's strange, but it does fit.  And if you've ever wanted to read a  novel where you don't mind being manipulated, this one is perfect.  Seriously. 

I truly wish I could say more about this book, but then these paragraphs would be filled with unforgivable spoilers and someone somewhere might be upset.  I will say that this is one of the screwiest (in a good way) novels I've ever read, especially in terms of crime fiction, where twists and turns are the general rule of thumb; here, Shan's imagination elevates them well beyond the norm.   This book is not going to be everyone's cup of tea, especially crime readers who like to go from point A to point B in a well-ordered fashion.  It also strains the credulity that most crime fiction readers, including me,  look for in their reading.   But frankly, this book is just plain fun and even better, it gets the better of you.  Lady of the Shades is a treat, and is perfect for times when you want a break from the serious and just feel like going with the flow.

 

*Beast in View, by Margaret Millar

 

9780752851730
Orion, Crime Masterworks Series, 2002
160 pp

"...it was  not an evening stroll, it was a chase, and she was the beast in view." 

 Trying to break a little from the same old same old, I rummaged through my American crime bookshelf and pulled out this golden oldie.  The publication date of this particular edition is 2002, but Beast in View originally came out in 1955.  A year later it won the Edgar Award for best novel,  up against Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (which, had I been a judge would have been my choice) and another book called The Case of the Talking Bug (also on my shelf, an old Doubleday Crime edition) by a husband and wife duo known as the Gordons.   Millar's husband Kenneth  was also no stranger to the crime-fiction scene --  his books continue to enjoy great popularity today under his pen name Ross Macdonald.  Margaret Millar produced some 21 crime novels herself; her first one, Invisible Worm, was published in 1941.  Beast in View is really more of a story of psychological suspense rather than a full-blown crime novel, set in Southern California of the1950s.

Helen Clarvoe, a young woman now 30, lives alone in a small hotel in Hollywood. Her mother, with whom she only rarely communicates by mail, lives six miles away with her brother Douglas.  The hotel  was the kind of place usually frequented by

"transients who stayed a night or two and moved on, minor executives and their wives conducting business with pleasure, salesmen with their sample cases, advertising men seeking new accounts, discreet ladies whose name were on file with the bellhops, and tourists in town to do the studios and see the television shows..."

all very much the opposite of Miss Clarvoe and "yet she chose to live in their midst, like a visitor from another planet."  Helen lived there in a self-imposed isolation from the rest of the world,  "behind her wall of money and the iron bars of her egotism," never going out to see much of the world, although because of prudent investments, she certainly could have.  She receives a phone call one day and the woman at the other end of the line claimed to one of her friends, calling herself  Evelyn Merrick.  As Helen listens, she is convinced the caller is mad, although the caller disagrees -- telling Helen that in fact, she is the one who is mad, calling her a "little coward," accusing her of being jealous, and saying that she can see everything about Helen in her crystal ball. After questioning the switchboard operator about the incoming call, Helen gets in contact with her family's former investment counselor,  Mr. Blackshear, who comes to the hotel to meet with her.  She talks to him about the call, then shows him a money clip which was missing quite a huge sum of cash, and explains that she feared that her caller, Evelyn Merrick, may have been the one who stole it. She wants Blackshear to find Merrick. The only clue that the caller left in her conversation with Helen was that someday she planned to be "immortal," that "her body would be in every art museum in the country."  Helen offers that hint to Blackshear as a place to start.  As Blackshear sets off on his quest in private-investigator mode, he begins to hear much more about Evelyn Merrick -- whose forté, it seems, lies in discovering other people's deep-seated insecurities and using her knowledge to provoke her victims into a state of gut-wrenching despair, leaving a trail of desperation and devastation behind her as she goes.  As Blackshear follows in Merrick's wake, the story develops through the points of view of different characters,  Blackshear, who is starting to relish his role as PI, ultimately discovers a slowly-unfolding  panorama of long-kept, long-buried secrets relevant to his investigations. 

 What comes out of this case goes far beyond the stuff of normal crime fare, as Millar takes her readers into middle-class Los Angeles of the 1950s, a place of societal constraints and, especially for this cast of characters, a number of unfulfilled expectations that have, over the years, remained dormant until finally germinating into crushing disappointments. Furthermore, while the central character, Helen Clarvoe, is a loner,  Beast in View is a novel with a profound emphasis on  human interactions and human failings at its core.  While many reviews I've read have noted that the solution was easily grasped from the outset, I didn't figure it out until the end when all was revealed, and decided that I liked being artfully manipulated by the author throughout the entire story. 

Don't let its age fool you.  Beast in View is very dark, almost noirish in tone, and probes deeply into the human psyche, in many ways much more realistically than many modern offerings.  This book will not be the last of Margaret Millar for me.  Highly recommended, but beware -- there is little in the way of happiness to be found in the entire novel.


*part of October's focus on American authors. 

Chalk Valley, by D.L. Johnstone

kindle edition, 2012
363 pp
download from author -- thanks!


Reading this book is a first for me -- I received an email from the author, who asked if I would be interested in reading & reviewing his new novel.  Normally I'm just too busy in my nonbook life, I have my reading lists pretty much established for the month, and I have a few publisher ARCs that I somehow have to weave in to the stack as time allows, so I generally turn these requests down.

Well, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised after reading this book. It's not a mystery, but more of a mix of police procedural and suspense. The bad guy is known to the readers from the beginning, and as the novel opens, he's at a mall in East Vancover, BC, where he's managed to lure a young girl to his van with the promise of a job if she'd go with him to his office to pick up some conveniently-forgotten forms.  In the meantime, two Chalk Valley cops are outside of a  roadside restaurant where they notice a car screaming by.  Rather than go after the driver, the cops are too focused on each other, and they go their separate ways.  Fast forward a month to Chalk Valley, about an hour and a half away, where a group of teens are gathered to smoke pot and drink.  As they scour the woods for firewood, they first notice a "putrid" smell - following their noses, they come across a body.  In the meantime, on a highway near Blind River, a reckless driver has an accident right in front of Dave Kreaver, who just happens to be a police sergeant.  When Dave goes to check on the guy, he realizes that there's a second person -- a young girl who is totally out of it, whom the driver, Phil Lindsay, says is his niece.  But Kreaver isn't so sure that the guy's telling the truth, especially when he runs away from the scene. Searching through the van the police now on the scene discover a bag containing rope, duct tape, metal pipe, a pry bar, handcuffs and a black pantyhose leg with two eye holes cut into it.  Later, at the hospital, the girl, Denise,  tells Kreaver a strange story about the man in the van, who offered her a job but had forgotten the application forms at his office.   Kreaver knows that the driver, Lindsay, is a kidnapper and probably a rapist, but legal issues, the fact that Lindsay has a good job, a family and  no previous record, and finally, the he-said/she-said situation all  make it likely that he won't be staying with the police for any amount of time.  But Kreaver is not about to let go. Back in Chalk Valley, the search for clues regarding the recently-discovered body  leads to the discovery of two more bodies. With very little to go on,  John McCarty knows this is going to be a tough case. As the two storylines converge, nobody is prepared for the eventual outcome of this case, which winds up taking a great personal toll on the people involved.

The author has obviously put in some research time and one of the highlights of this novel is his portrayal of conflicting police jurisdictions.  McCarty's boss reluctantly calls in profilers, but is determined that when all is said and done, the case will stay the property of the Chalk Valley police department.  As tips begin to come in and pile up, McCarty and his staff are buried chasing down leads, but McCarty wants to solve the case by himself, despite the task force that is formed as a joint police venture.  Valuable information comes in but is ignored or given low priority, stalling the investigation even further.  These ongoing segments are among the best parts of this book.

For a first novel by someone who's never even written in the crime field before, Chalk Valley is much better than what I would have expected.  The story is good and for the most part, credible, although it is a bit rushed toward the end when everything up to that point has rolled out at a slower pace.  Some of the characterizations could have been reined in and a bit more controlled.  For example, the news reporter Jamie Straka is realistic when she's doing her job, but a bit overdone in the scenes involving her personal life.  On the other hand, there are two characters who seem especially credible: Kreaver, a former RCMP officer who changed directions when his little boy died, and Phil Lindsay, the bad guy who's manipulative, in control and whose behavior progressively gets much worse as the novel progresses.  Of those two, Mr. Johnstone has done the best with his portrayal of Kreaver -- a character I wouldn't mind seeing again.   I also  have to give the author a huge amount of credit for his ability to create a viable sense of place -- the woods in this area of British Columbia are very beautifully described and I know because I've been up there; at the same time, in some places the prose  was a little overwritten.  Sometimes when switching chapters after a tension-filled previous scene, he throws out a descriptive phrase or paragraph about weather, temperature, the moonlight, etc. which detracted from the earlier action and lessened the impact of what's just happened.  Less would have been so much more here!

All in all, it's pretty good with a few rough edges that could easily be smoothed out as the author's writing career progresses.  There is a definitely a lot of action and tension which would make thriller-oriented readers happy; there's a great villain for readers of serial-killer novels, and for police-procedural fans, there is his portrayal of the intra-agency conflicts that gives this first attempt an edge over other the work of other nonprofessional writers I've read. 

Aside from all of the first-time mistakes and a few instances of overwriting, the story is a good one and I liked it.  I'll look forward to seeing more of the author's work in the future.

The Viper, by Håkan Östlundh

9780312642327
St. Martin's/Minotaur, 2012
originally published as Blot, 2008
translated by Per Carlsson
358 pp

After a long hiatus from Scandinavian crime fiction to focus on the a) Man Booker Prize longlist and b) a number of ARCs,  many of which I still have yet to write up, I finally got around to this one after it sat here for a month.  Östlundh may be new to the American crime scene, but he's an established crime writer in Sweden, where his series featuring Fredrik Broman has already enjoyed success.  The Viper, written in 2008, is book number four in this series, so  here we go again, starting American readers with a book way down the series list instead of book #1, not giving us a chance to familiarize ourselves with the main characters before plunging us well into the thick of things.   -- sigh -- This novel  is a police procedural which also tries to be a psychological study; as a police procedural it's pretty good but otherwise it comes off sort of flat. When the Visby cops are doing their job it's quite interesting; otherwise, it's a bit confusing, incomplete and rather so-so. 

There are two main stories at work here.  As the novel opens a helicopter is landing at a hospital, its patient none other than Fredrik Broman himself.  He has sustained terrible injuries that will keep him hospitalized for some time.  That storyline is interspersed with the investigation that ultimately put him there, as the police are called to the scene of a double homicide. The female victim is Kristina Traneus, wife of  Arvid, who is returning to his life in Sweden after a number of years away as a corporate "annihilator" in Japan.  Kristina was not at all happy about Arvid's return; it seems that while Arvid has been gone, she had taken up once again with her former lover (and Arvid's cousin) Anders. But the question on the minds of the detectives is that of the male victim's identity -- who is it? His identity has been virtually wiped out after having been attacked in a frenzy with some sort of very sharp blade, and the police are left to wonder if it was Anders, Arvid or even a third, unknown party.   During their investigation, the police pick up clues about Arvid and Kristina's family life, which, according to everyone,  was all but happy -- including the death of a daughter some years earlier, something "hush-hush," which "may have been cancer, or else something psychological that made her commit suicide." 


While the central mystery behind the identity of not only the killer but the victim is solid, keeping the reader interested enough to keep reading on, the characterizations leave a lot to be desired. Chapters move quickly, and each character plays a part in moving the story along.  But therein lies the problem: considering that the story moves via an omniscient narrator between the viewpoints of different characters, you'd think the author would have put much more effort into careful character construction.  Sadly, with the exception of Arvid and Kristina, the others come across as less than credible, especially when the author tries to delve inside of their respective heads.  And I'm sorry -- but why do we need a high-class prostitute talking to Arvid's penis before performing oral sex in the very first chapter?  I hate when authors do this. Arvid's inner thoughts could have been done while looking out the window, his womanizing described succinctly, but no, the author has to throw in some really stupid fellatio moments right at the outset. Really?

I would love to read his other work to find out if this one is an anomaly among the other series novels; normally I would chalk this up to the problems often found in series' first novels, but this one is the fourth.  To be fair, I was interested in the main murder plot, and I was interested in the story of the dead sister, but the latter had to be guessed at, pulling in clues here and there as the story progressed, ultimately to be somewhat disappointed.  And to be fair, this book is getting a number of great reviews, with people comparing the author to other masters of Scandinavian crime fiction.  I may not agree with their assessments of this book, but as I'm always saying, after years and years and years of reading crime, I'm a very tough audience.

crime fiction from Sweden

#5  2013 International Dagger eligible novels.

A Private Venus, by Giorgio Scerbanenco

9780956379641
Hersilia Press, 2012 (UK)
originally published in 1966 as Venere Privata
translated by Howard Curtis
250 pp*
 paper

My Italian crime section of the Eurocrime shelves is rapidly expanding, and I'm happy to welcome Giorgio Scerbanenco to my list of new authors. Of course, Scerbanenco isn't new on the scene of Italian crime fiction, but he's new to me and I hope that the powers that be at Hersilia will consider publishing more of his books. A Private Venus is the first of a series featuring Dr. Duca Lamberti, a physician who at the start of this novel has just been released from prison. Lamberti was sent away for three years for helping a terminally ill patient to die with some amount of dignity and free her from her terrible pain.  Now he's back and has been taken on by Auseri, a wealthy engineer, to help his son Davide who just the year before had started drinking heavily.  Davide, according to his father, is a "big lump" and a hopeless drinker -- he would like Lamberti to act as his son's friend and doctor and use any means available to help his son get back to normal.  As he notes to Lamberti,

"I don't care if it takes a year, or what means he uses, he could even beat him to death, I'd rather he was dead than an alcoholic."

Lamberti is hesitant, but because of the needs of single-mother sister and her daughter, decides he will take the job.  After some time with Davide, he begins to realize that the young man is not an alcoholic, but rather that something traumatic lies at the root of his drinking problem.  After some time together, Lamberti brings Davide with him to visit his father's grave, and as Lamberti expresses his sadness, Davide reveals that he would like to visit a grave as well, but he doesn't know where it might be.  Lamberti tells Davide that all he has to do is to go to the office with the name of the person and they would help him locate the grave. Out of nowhere, the dam  in Davide's troubled psyche begins to burst in a most unexpected way and he reveals that the grave belongs to  "woman I killed last year. Her name was Alberta Radelli."

Davide's revelation turns out to be not that of a murderer, although he has taken personal responsibility for the death of Alberta Radelli, a prostitute who one year earlier had been found dead by the roadside, wrists slashed in an apparent suicide. But the police who investigated her death had never found any sort of sharp instrument that might have done the trick. But Davide isn't finished. He also happens to have saved something that Alberta left in his car after he'd picked her up and then later made her get out -- a small film cartridge that came from a Minox camera.  The photos left behind are of two women, one of them Davide, in various poses, naked.  The police restart their investigation into Alberta's death, but who is the second woman? How will they ever find out who was really responsible for Alberta's supposed suicide? What is behind it all?  Lamberti begs to "play policeman," and promises Davide that when they find the guy who killed her, he will be able to take his revenge.  What Lamberti doesn't realize is that once he starts getting answers, he has already stepped on a path which will take him into a sordid world of darkness, from which for some there is no escape.

Written in 1966, much of the action is pretty tame for today's more jaded readers of modern crime fiction (such as myself) who are used to  in-depth visual imagery and some pretty horrific descriptions of violence that turn up in current crime novels, but the impact of this story is just as potent as any modern-day author could hope to establish. Much like the main character Lamberti, the novel is simultaneously edgy and intense, especially in its exploration of  human nature. Lamberti's personal views of morality express themself in this passage, which, incidentally, seem to apply to today in some cases: 

"Society is a game, right? The rules of the game are written in the civil code, and in another imprecise, unwritten code called the moral code. They may be debatable codes, and have to be constantly updated, but either you keep to the rules, or you don't. The only person breaking the rules of the game that I can respect is the bandit with his rifle hiding in the mountains: he doesn't keep to the rules of the game, but then he makes it quite clear he doesn't want to play in good society anyway and that he'll make his own rules as he wants, with his rifle. But not swindlers, no, I hate and despise them. These days there are bandits with lawyers in attendance, they cheat, they rob, they kill, but they've already worked out a line of defence with their lawyer in case they're found out and put on trial, and they never get the punishment they deserve. They want others to keep to the game, to the rules, but not themselves. I don't like that, I can't stand these people, just knowing they're near, just smelling them, sets my nerves on edge."

And because this novel was written in 1966, today's political correctness was not employed in writing as it is today, so there are references to a homosexual character as a "pederast," or a  "mutant;" women in the city can be "prone" to prostitution that should not be judged in modern terms.  

This is only the first book in this series, so if A Private Venus is any indication, there are even better times to come with this author.  The dark that lives in men's souls is a prominent feature in this novel, so if you want happy endings or lighthearted crime, this may not be your best choice.  But if this doesn't bother you, or like me intrigues you, you should definitely give it a go.

** there are 250 pages of A Private Venus; the remainder of the book is a short autobiographical sketch by the author which is also well worth reading.



#5 read,  2013 International Dagger eligible novels

The Crime of Julian Wells, by Thomas H. Cook

97808021626030

Mysterious Press, 2012
292 pp

"He was like Mephistopheles...He took hell with him wherever he went."
A week or so ago I was flipping through the books that Amazon has so kindly recommended for me, and as if there was a checklist in my head beside each title, the invisible pencil in my brain was ticking the no boxes on down the line until I saw this book by Thomas H. Cook.  Some time back I had bought his The Chatham School Affair, which I loved, one I really must dig out and reread sometime soon.    Anyway, evidently some algorithm linked me to Mr. Cook's newest novel,  The Crime of Julian Wells, based on my earlier purchase, and since I was looking for something different to read, I thought I'd take a chance on it.  It paid off -- in spades.  Although there are some very solid mysteries at its core, technically it's not a "crime" fiction, so to speak, but I'm discussing it here because Mr. Cook is a well-known author of crime fiction, largely psychological in nature.  He has twenty-five other novels to his credit, his first published in 1988. He's also written three nonfiction, true-crime books, and has shared editorship with Otto Penzler in two series: Best American Crime Writing and Best American Crime Reporting.  Now he's delivered a story that gradually unfolds within a world of darkness while examining the people who dwell there -- a world in which  

“The road to moral horror is never direct. There are always ramps and stairs, corridors, and tunnels, the secret chamber forever concealed from those who would be appalled by what they found there.”

  ****

Philip Anders, "stay-at-home" literary critic and the narrator of this story,  was the best friend of  Julian Wells since childhood until the day Julian rowed himself out into the middle of a pond bordering his Montauk family home, opened his veins and bled to death in the boat.  His death was a surprise to both Philip and Julian's sister Loretta.   His decades-long writing career  led to  articles "about plague and famine and holocaust," and five books  which focused on some of history's  most horrific crimes and the monsters who committed them.  As Philip, Loretta and later Philip's father, a former bureaucrat at the State Department,  begin to ponder the whys, Philip wonders if Julian's long immersion into human darkness might have taken its toll on his friend; Loretta believed he was "like a man in a locked room, trying to get out," and Philip's father thinks that "Julian had a lot of feeling...too much of it morbid," and that darkness was all Julian knew.   As Loretta and Philip talk, Loretta informs him that she believed Julian was already on track for another book -- she had seen him looking at a map the day he'd died, the first step in Julian's writing process, after which he'd read all he could then travel to the site. The map, she says to Philip, was of Argentina, and  a part of it had been circled.  Julian and Philip had visited the area together some thirty years earlier, where they had met a lovely young woman who served as their guide.    When Loretta wonders if their trip may have been on Julian's mind, Philip discards the idea because it was so long ago that they'd been there.  But soon he begins to wonder -- was it possible that  Julian's state of mind that day had something to do with that old trip? And what about the dedication in Julian's book where he acknowledged Philip as the "sole witness to my crime." What crime? What was the crime of Julian Wells?  Philip decides he must act as Julian's friend and try to uncover the mystery behind Julian's death.

Very cleverly constructed, the novel takes the reader not only through Europe and Argentina as Philip follows Julian's footsteps, but also into a journey where the author explores such thematic issues as the nature of guilt, deception and betrayal, the various forms of cruelty and the hearts and minds of the people who employ them, as well as  the meaning of  friendship. Each chapter brings Philip closer to the truth, not only about the answers he seeks but about his friend Julian as well.  Philip's travels also reveal the darkness and malevolence that take root and sometimes come to maturity in the souls of human beings.  At the same time, his search will reveal that  life has a "cruel randomness"; that it is a  "lottery upon whose uncontrollable outcome everything depended." 

The author throws in several references to classic crime writers like Eric Ambler and Graham Greene, and conjures up old spy and noir novels in a smoky cafe in Paris with 

"a dim, oddly undulating light that throws this mysterious figure into half shadow, that one into silhouette, by turns revealing or concealing a forehead, a jaw, an eye with a patch, each face broken into puzzle pieces...you would put two men in linen suits, one with a very thin moustache, the other clean shaven, wearing a panama hat...where a man in a red fez drinks tea from a white china cup..."

Philip at one point describes Julian as being "like Orpheus," bringing his "music into hell, and like him, he had died in a world that no longer wished to hear it."   Julian's  approach to his writing was to view each of these horrible criminal acts  "part of a larger disorder, one fiber sprung from a hideous cloth."  He's even witnessed some of these horrific "fibers" firsthand:  a king who bought several luxury cars while the people in his country starved, with very little water, maybe living to age 31.  He's seen battery cables hooked up to cars outside  leading inside into a basement where torture is underway, fully justified in one man's mind as being good for the country's future.  But for others, guilt eats away at the soul, not easily if at all assuaged. Ironically, copywriter Loretta finds that the big trend in the publishing biz is "happy talk. Tips on how to avoid thinking about the only things Julian ever thought about"   In this world where Gatsby is condensed down to 17 pages, Julian's work and the truth behind it is destined to be forgotten, as will all of the victims caught up in this "cruel randomness."


The people in this book are terrifically and at times frighteningly well drawn, some of them have enough personality to send the occasional shiver down your spine.  The Crime of Julian Wells is an incredible novel, one I absolutely recommend.  People who are interested in Argentina's Dirty War would be great readers for this novel; historical crime buffs and anyone interested in the darker events in European history would also like it.  It's not a cozy-type thing at all; some scenes are graphic although not terribly overdone -- considering the subject matter, it could have been much, much worse.  The novel also ventures into the philosophical at times, something that  might turn some readers off, but for others it might be that something different you've been looking for.  Super, super book -- some of the best and most original writing I've seen in contemporary American crime fiction.